News

On Monday, the Santa Fe New Mexican released an interview with one-term Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, which included an interview trying to downplay her COVID-19 response, which has decimated countless New Mexico businesses and livelihoods.

During the interview, Lujan Grisham admitted how her strict mandates would hurt her at the polls, with the New Mexican writing that “there will be parents of school-age children who may never vote for her again because of classroom closures.” 

“ ‘Be mad at the pandemic,’ is what I tell everyone,” said Lujan Grisham, adding that “it’s not political.” 

She reflected on her decisions during the pandemic and said, “The very first important decision on March 11 is that we’re going to ask businesses to shutter and people to stay home, and we’re going to get ready to close schools.” 

However, her only regret she said is that she wasn’t able to influence Republican members in the National Governor’s Association to shut down their states as she did. “That’s something I really pride myself on, that I can bring people of different parties and different perspectives together, and I couldn’t do it at the federal level,” she added.

She also bemoaned her inability to convince Tribal governments to also follow her economy-killing mandates, saying “And I still have, you know, moments where I just feel poorly that I was unable to get other policymakers on the same page.”

Tripp Stelnicki, the Governor’s communications director who has repeatedly been an enemy of the common New Mexican, said that he feels confident about the “internal polling” done on the governor’s performance, saying she gets “high marks” from New Mexicans.

“That might run counter to the perception you get from angsty corners of social media, but I think New Mexicans overwhelmingly recognize that a crisis calls for decisive leadership and a willingness to make tough and sometimes unpopular decisions,” he said. He added, “You can’t make assumptions in politics, but we feel pretty good about public support.” 

It appears the Governor’s spokesman has just downplayed the countless New Mexicans who have been decimated by the Governor’s lockdown as simply living in “angsty corners of social media.” He previously downplayed the hours-long breadlines at stores due to the Governor’s lockdown as a “minor inconvenience” while claiming Republicans who oppose Lujan Grisham’s dictates are members of a “death cult.” He also belittled a local television news reporter for asking basic questions.

Now, the Governor is trying to gin up support as the state remains in lockdown, comparing the state’s current position to that of the Great Recession of 2008. Lujan Grisham said, “I don’t want anyone … to assume that we are in the same productive economic position that we were in at the end of ’19. But I think New Mexicans should not expect New Mexico to languish like we did in the last recession.” 

However, the Governor’s disdain for New Mexicans during her weekly press conferences doesn’t appear to merely be stemming from “angsty corners of social media.” Here are some of her worst: